News:

"There is a terrible desperation to the increasingly pathetic rationalizations from the climate denial camp. This comes as no surprise if you take the long view; every single undone paradigm in history has died kicking and screaming, and our current petroleum paradigm 🐉🦕🦖 is no different. The trick here is trying to figure out how we all make it to the new ⚡ paradigm without dying ☠️ right along with the old one, kicking, screaming or otherwise." - William Rivers Pitt

Beware the military-industrial complex, a real president once warned America. Unfortunately for us Trump, with all his complexes of a different sort, is looking to turn the military into an arm of industry, just like he has the rest of the federal government.

That’s the latest development in Trump’s attempts to bail out the dying coal industry, reports Ben Storrow at E&E. Initially, Storrow reports, the bailout was going to be the Department of Energy’s job. Last year Rick Perry put on his smartest looking glasses and did his best to cook up a report justifying the use of presidential war powers to require military bases to buy coal and nuclear power. But it turns out Perry might need more than just a new pair of black plastic rims: Bloomberg recently reported that the grid study didn’t turn out the way the administration wanted, which is likely why it’s yet to see the light of day.

DOE denied that portrayal this week, but Politico reported on Monday thatPerry’s 🐒 plan is dead in the water, and Hannah Northey at E&E got a quote from a Trump admin official calling Perry’s proposal “poorly articulated.” (This must be a particularly painful dig for Perry, given that the criticism is coming from an administration led by a man who not only speaks like a child, but probably doesn’t even know the meaning of “articulate.” )

With an increasing recognition that Perry’s plan won’t work, Trump et al. are looking elsewhere to help the dying, dirty industry.

Not to be outclassed by the leg-flexin’ Texan, Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told the AP on Monday that the administration is considering using military installations as fossil fuel export terminals. Communities along the west coast have voted to prevent the construction of new export terminals, which has left the fossil fuel industry is hunting for ways to get its products to overseas markets.

Obviously the Trump 🦀 administration isn’t going to let a little thing like democracy stand in the way of doing whatever industry wants , but to be fair this isn’t exactly all the Trump crew’s doing. In fact, a certain Representative from Wyoming by the name of Liz Cheney told the AP she had spoken with Zinke and Perry about using military bases “to get around some of the unreasonable obstacles that have been thrown up” to the export terminals.

A Cheney considering democracy an “unreasonable obstacle” to fossil fuel profits? Seems Trump’s 2018 isn’t so unique after all… (Let’s just hope she doesn’t take too much after her father and “accidentally” shoot anyone in the face over this, and then make the victim apologize.)

Fans of respecting the people who voted against polluting facilities on their coasts and in their communities were quick to criticize the plan. Washington Governor Jay Inslee told Politico that “it’s really impressive how this administration churns out harebrained schemes for their Department of c o c k-Eyed Ideas,” while former undersecretary of the Navy Tom Hicks said it “doesn’t sound logical or fully baked,” and instead “sounds a little half-cocked.”

While turning military bases into what amounts to gas stations may sound far-fetched and insane, Trump’s already more or less done so with the rest of the federal government, so why not use military bases to serve the fossil fuel industry?

The original impetus to launch Diesel big time for cars was that after the first oil crisis B&W launched motor technology for the shipping industry that could run on the cheaper and filthier bunker oil. This made Diesel an excess fraction.

Big oil rounded the car industry and EU up and they all agreed to launch Diesel for cars as a way to support big oil.

All European countries kept Diesel taxation down and Diesel for touted as more efficient and thus environmentally benign than gasoline.

Also to further press Diesel car technology down the throat of the ordinary car buyers the new car taxation began to be tied to CO2 emissions, which as everybody now knows are never really attainable in real life.

Along the way EU also imposed a demand for catalyzers. They do not function at all for most trips and they rarely last for mere than 100.000 km, so most driving are done with no effect from the catalyzers say for the benign effect for big oil that the catalyzer increase consumption by 10%.

EU has systematically rigged the scene for big oil and the car industry have been happy with the going of things in lieu with the fact that there never where any serious EU investigation going on regarding emissions so they could meet the emission standards with phony software and get permission for not meeting standards below certain ambient temperature (17 degrees Celsius).

Now the car industry is upset that they are to blame while all the time everybody else have been in on the plot.

agelbert> Jens StubbeEXCELLENT comment!

Thank you 💐 Jense Stubbe.

Read more:

October 18th, 2018 by Nicolas Zart

SNIPPET:

The Groupe PSA, which includes Peugeot, Citroen, Opel, and Vauxhall, has had its hands full after acquiring Opel and Vauxhall. The transition hasn’t been as smooth as expected and now the company is facing legacy emission problems after a fiery French newspaper revelation.

Lies, Lies, & More Lies: LawrenceSolomon🦕 Is Scared & So Is The Fossil Fuel Industry

October 21st, 2018 by Joshua S Hill

It should come as no surprise that the fossil fuel industry has many defenders🐵 🐒 🦍 willing to step up to the plate and bat for them — it is, after all, a multi-billion-dollar industry with long-standing relationships and a desire not to collapse into infamy and oblivion.

The simple reality is that, for a large part of the planet, the fossil fuel industry is on its last legs. Developed nations are wholesale turning to renewable energy — either by federal impetus or through the work of sub-national players such as local governments and corporations — and developing nations are looking to renewable energy as a means to jump over the fossil fuel step altogether, avoiding the need to build up costly nationwide infrastructure and preventing further emissions increases.

Fear & Ignorance

This new reality, however, is apparently difficult for some people to comprehend. Most recently, BP CEO Bob Dudley, speaking as the “Petroleum Executive of the Year” at the Oil & Money conference in London, raised his fears of the global divestment and disclosure movements that are impacting the fossil fuel industry, suggesting that they “could lead to bad outcomes.” His rationale, however, was based on faulty assumptions and blind ignorance of the realities.

BP 🦕 CEO Bob Dudley 😈

However, Dudley can at least be given credit for admitting the need for change, and presenting a path forward which he claimed was “not a call for business as usual” and one that “requires significant and rapid disruption to our industry.”

The same credit cannot be given to Lawrence Solomon, however, a columnist for Canada’s National Post section (which bears the name Financial Post after the business newspaper of the same name) and the Executive Director of Energy Probe, the consumer and energy research team of Canada’s Energy Probe Research Foundation.

Writing an op-ed recently for the Financial Post, Solomon set aside any dignity or professional integrity he may once have grasped to and penned what can only be described as a hit-piece on the renewable energy industry with all the internal consistency of a wet tissue. Solomon’s article — entitled “Trudeau stands alone as Canada — and the world — abandons green energy” — ran with the witty lede, “Wind and solar have become the fossils of the energy industry; oil, gas and coal remain the fuels of the future.” An entire fact-check article could be written about the opening paragraph on its own — not bad, considering it boasts only 109 words in four sentences.

Solomon’s article was brought to our attention here at CleanTechnica by a frustrated reader who asked that we investigate the claims Solomon made in his piece — described by the reader as “so untruthful and so far from reality that I think it deserves to be called out.”

More than simply “calling out” Lawrence Solomon, however, I think it’s worth being completely upfront and honest about Solomon and his opinions — and opinions they are, make no mistake about it, in the true spirit of the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of the word — “A view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge” — for, it would appear that Solomon’s opinions have never even heard of the concept of “facts” and “knowledge.”

Lies, Lies, & MoreLies

To be fair, the issue is not so much with Lawrence Solomon in and of himself, rather, he is simply representative of a number of such pundits who occupy their own little space of real estate in magazines, newspapers, and on television the world over.

Solomon is in no way particularly special for the absurdity of his views, but he serves as a convenient example of the types of lies that are spread, and the way in which people opposed to renewable energy and in denial about global warming make their arguments.

In his opinion article, Lawrence Solomon attempts to make the argument that renewable energy is not only on the back foot around the world, but that it is in full retreat. To support this argument, Solomon refers to several pieces of so-called evidence which he has pulled kicking and screaming out of context. I’ll handle them one at a time.

China

Solomon claims that China has “begun to throw in the towel by cutting subsidies to renewables, an augur of the demise of investment in its renewables sector.” Solomon also points to recent reporting from green campaigners CoalSwarm which claimed that 259 gigawatts (GW) of new coal capacity are currently under construction.

Satellite visualization from Carbon Tracker

While Solomon accurately reported the findings from CoalSwarm’s new satellite imagery report — which showed construction ongoing at coal plants across the country, the result of a permitting surge between late-2014 and early-2016 — he incorrectly blames the reason for China’s decision to cut subsidies to renewables.

It’s important to remember the context of China’s current reliance on coal. The new capacity currently under construction is the result of local authorities approving new projects, and actually flies in the face of China’s Central Government’s decisions to halt construction of new coal-fired power plants. Toward the end of 2016 and over the first few months of 2017, China announced the cancellation of 30 large coal-fired power plants amounting to 17 gigawatts (GW), followed soon after by the cancellation of 104 more under-construction and planned coal projects amounting to 120 GW. In March of this year, a report showed that the development of new coal plants in 2017 had declined in China, thanks in part to the Central Government’s decision to suspend construction across hundreds of projects.

Unfortunately, CoalSwarm’s recent report might suggest that China’s Central Government no longer has the control it once had to make these sweeping cuts, but a report published earlier this month by Carbon Tracker shows that 40% of China’s coal plants are already losing money and that the country could save nearly $390 billion by closing plants instead of keeping them operational.

Further, it’s important to look at the whole of what is happening in China. In September, China’s National Development & Reform Commission (NDRC) wrote a draft policy that paved the way to increase the country’s renewable energy target from 20% to 35% by 2030.

Later that same month, China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) issued draft guidelines that would look to phase out power generation subsidies — just as Solomon highlighted, except, the intention of the decision was to provide the country’s renewable energy sector with further technological and policy support so that those technologies can compete against other technologies on their own. Specifically, the draft guidelines seek to incentivize renewable energy technologies in regions where they can operate without help from government subsidies.

“The reason China’s cutting subsidy is mainly because of the huge deficit in the national renewable subsidy fund,” explained Yali Jiang, a solar analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance, who spoke to me via email. “By the end of 2017, the deficit amounted around $19 billion including those for wind and solar projects. As a result, the government expects to, for instance, restrict new solar installations that require national subsidy immediately.”

“China’s solar installation contracted in 3Q due to the policy change,” Jiang added. “The grid-connected PV capacity halved in July and August compared with last year. But the country remains to be the largest investor in clean energy in 3Q ($26.7 billion), a fraction above the same period of 2017.”

Far from being “an augur of the demise of investment in its renewables sector,” as Solomon so dramatically put it, China’s decision to cut subsidies is actually based in a desire to minimize the financial strain caused by subsidizing new power generation, while at the same time providing technological and political support that will help renewable energy compete on its own — much as it does in other parts of the world, such as throughout Europe and North America.

Europe

Lawrence Solomon, far from being happy with one example, decided to add another to the mix, explaining that, “With the cutting of subsidies to renewables in the [European Union], investment last year dropped to less than half of its peak six years earlier.”

Again, Solomon correctly looked at the chart, sourced from Bloomberg New Energy Finance and highlighted by the World Economic Forum in May of 2018 — an article, mind you, which highlights the success of the investment in China’s renewable energy sector, and betrays Solomon’s contention that China has suffered a decline in investment in its renewables sector (made literally the sentence beforehand).

While it is true that investment in Europe’s renewable energy industry has fallen off in recent times, it’s doubly important to look at the region’s capacity installations over the same time. Between 2011 and 2017 — the six-year period Solomon highlighted — generation from renewable electricity across the 28 Member States of the European Unionskyrocketed.

Complete renewable energy capacity additions for Europe are difficult to come by — unsurprising, given the nature of a supranational governing body — but we can mitigate that somewhat by looking specifically at the two dominant renewable energy technologies, wind, and solar.

Annual wind energy installations across Europe have steadily ticked up each year, declining only once since 2011, in 2013.

It’s worth noting, though, that new capacity additions for 2018 are on a worrying downward trend, as seen by half-year figures published by WindEurope in July.

Europe’s solar industry has similarly suffered from recent investment figures, as can be seen in the graph below, published by SolarPower Europe in June (as part of a global outlook).

Evolution of Global Annual Solar PV Installed Capacity 2000-2017

So while from a certain point of view, Lawrence Solomon can claim that Europe’s clean energy investment has fallen, resulting in lower solar capacity additions and moderate wind additions, it’s worth seeing this in light of the whole. Solar has begun growing again across Europe — with a total of 9.2 GW worth of new capacity added in 2017, a 30% increase on the year before — and offshore wind continues to increase its share. Europe was also one of the first regions to double-down on solar, and accounts for 28% of the global total, with a total of 114 GW worth of installed capacity.

Additionally, even though investments have decreased, this does not necessarily speak to a larger fall-off for the renewable energy industry. Rather, as technologies such as solar PV and onshore wind mature, their costs have decreased, which means that less money is needed to build even more capacity.

Lawrence Solomon may have struck closer to the mark with this particular example, but it does not serve to bolster his argument any, considering the impact of Brexit and the UK’s shift away from solar towards wind, the declining cost of mature technologies, and natural market dynamics and political malfeasance from politicians who share Solomon’s point of view.

Japan

Investment in Japan’s clean energy industry has indeed slowed since 2016 — essentially falling off a financial cliff at the end of 2015. Much like China, however, Japan’s situation is not as clear-cut as a graph might show.

“After years of record-breaking investment driven by some of the world’s most generous feed-in tariffs, China and Japan are cutting back on building new large-scale projects and shifting towards digesting the capacity they have already put in place,” said Justin Wu, head of Asia for BNEF, said in January of 2017.

“China is facing slowing power demand and growing wind and solar curtailment. The government is now focused on investing in grids and reforming the power market so that the renewables in place can generate to their full potential. In Japan, future growth will come not from utility-scale projects but from rooftop solar systems installed by consumers attracted by the increasingly favorable economics of self-consumption.”

It’s ironic, however, that Solomon decided to use Japan as throwaway proof of “a worldwide trend rejecting renewables.” If he had made the argument even a year ago, it might have held more weight, but given recent moves by Japan’s government, and corporations and utilities within Japan, it loses all importance.

In July, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, better known as TEPCO, announced that it intends to pursue the development of between 6 and 7 GW worth of renewable energy capacity worth tens of billions of dollars in an intentional move away from nuclear power. Speaking to Nikkei, TEPCO’s president Tomoaki Kobayakawa announced his company will look to develop 6 to 7 GW of renewable energy across Japan and overseas in a move expected to yield 100 billion yen ($8.98 billion) in profit. “We must gain a competitive advantage in renewable energy,” he said.

Meanwhile, in September, Japan’s Electric Power Development Co., better known as J-Power, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with French multinational electric utility ENGIE to collaborate on power projects, specifically offshore wind and floating offshore wind projects — a further sign of Japan’s turn away from nuclear, and specifically towards contending with Taiwan as an offshore wind hub. And only last week, the Fitch Group published a forecast which expected Japan to add 17 GW worth of new solar capacity by the end of 2020, before the sector begins to slow.

For Lawrence Solomon, Japan also does not prove his belief that renewable energy is on the back foot.

The UK, et al

I could go on. Solomon points to Germany, the UK, and Australia as further proof that the world is turning away from renewable energy. While both Germany and Australia serve as good examples of this, they are about the only two countries that do — and only from a national point of view, with sub-state actors serving to pick up where the nation’s governments left off (or, in Australia’s case, never picked up to begin with).

Solomon’s citing the UK as an example of a flagging renewable energy industry, however, truly beggars belief. Not only is the UK home to one of the world’s most persistent and dominant renewable energy countries, Scotland, but the UK is also the world’s offshore wind energy leader, boasting a portfolio of projects in operation, under construction, or in development, of 35.2 GW.

Agreed, the UK’s investment is likely to fall, a point made by the Green Alliance in January of 2017, analyzing the UK Government’s own numbers. The government has proven lackluster at best when it comes to preparing for a post-Brexit world, and it has thoroughly mishandled commitments to various technologies (onshore wind and solar, in particular). However, it’s important to look at the long-term — the Green Alliance’s analysis only looks to 2020, and a July announcement from the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy could mitigate some of these short-term losses, by setting a timeline for new offshore wind auctions starting from 2021.

“The renewables sector in the UK has seen pretty dire policy from government: solar and onshore wind projects have been effectively blocked, despite the fact that they’re now the cheapest form of new power,” explained Dustin Benton, Policy Director at Green Alliance. “By contrast, dirty power stations, supported by the UK’s flawed capacity market, have seen several hundred million pounds of government contracts over the past few years.”

Image Credit: MHI Vestas

“The exception to this generally gloomy picture is in offshore wind: despite irregular auctions, the sector has reduced prices by two-thirds over the past two years, and the government has committed to procuring around 16 GW of new offshore wind during the 2020s, putting the country on track for 30 GW by 2030 – a level consistent with meeting the UK’s carbon targets.”

It’s also worth remembering that Great Britain currently boasts its lowest ever share of fossil fuels in its energy mix, accounting for only 41% of total generation, down from 71% only 7 years ago.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Lawrence? Lie!

An argument against renewable energy and climate change is not complete, however, without mentioning the biggest elephant in the room — the United States. Solomon reserves an entire paragraph for the US but barely manages to come close to the truth.

Solomon sets the scene — the Democrats are out of power and Donald Trump is in, and quickly moves to exit from the Paris Agreement. What did the country manage to do with this new paradigm shift?

Right out of the gate, Solomon … well, he pretty much rushes headlong into the gate. Solomon starts out by claiming that the US has revived its coal industry. One wonders exactly where to start on this. In January, Reuters obtained preliminary US government data which showed that the coal industry continues to shed jobs. In February, figures published by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) revealed that not only had there been no new coal capacity added during 2017 (and only 3 units in 2016) but that coal’s total share of generating capacity has declined by 17.83% over the past five years. In fact, according to figures published in June by the US Energy Information Administration, coal has dropped to providing only 27% of total electricity generation.

The cause for coal’s steep decline? According to researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Colorado Boulder writing in May, the responsible party is not renewable energy but is in fact the decline in natural gas prices. And only this week, the White House — the very center of Donald Trump’s power — has reportedly shelved a plan to bail out the coal (and nuclear) sectors.

The final point to make is, possibly, the most absurd. Written and positioned as if it was the final nail in Solomon’s argument, he writes that “The once-powerful United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, formerly a fixture in the news, is defanged and forgotten, having lost its US funding and its relevance.”

Solomon’s article was published on September 28, only 11 days before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report warning that limiting global warming to 1.5°C will “require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” Putting aside the fact that the IPCC works in long-term cycles and is not beholden to publish material regularly (nor has it ever), Solomon must have regretted that particular sentence.

Abandoning Truth

It takes something special to be able to so blatantly and casually lie in public as Lawrence Solomon manages. To so clearly and repeatedly mishandle the facts and misconstrue the evidence requires either an almost champion level of ignorance, or a complete disregard for the truth. Solomon squeezes at least a dozen lies and half-truths into only 750 words — that’s at least one every 62 words.

Is the global renewable energy industry on the back foot? No — in fact, in many parts of the world, it is progressing faster than ever before, and well above any other energy technology. The industry is maturing, however, and with that naturally comes some bumpy patches — stagnation, political intervention and misappropriation, and economic fluctuations; to think otherwise is naive.

But to think that these bumps in the road represent some global shift away from renewable energy is to ignore all common sense and historical evidence.Renewable energy isn’t going away, nor is it declining in popularity. It is the future — not just because we need it to be, but because it is economically better.

The brazen attack by Republicans on Debbie Mucarsel-Powell took away my breath. The National Republican Congressional Committee 🐉🦕 🦖😈👹 released an ad late last week claiming that climate hawkDebbie Mucarsel-Powell’s“campaign is flooded with dirty coal money, the very polluters that threaten our way of life in the Keys.”

Yep, you read that right.

I can hardly wait for the NRCC’s similar attack ads against EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN 😈👹🦕🦖 EVER.

See, when we endorsed Debbie, we pointed out that climate peacock Carlos Curbelohas taken tens of thousandsfrom Big Oil. Debbie’s been using his fossil fuel money ties on the campaign trail. And right now, we’re running digital ads in the district pointing out the tens of thousands he’s proudly taken from Exxon Mobil and others. That means the attacks are working -- but now the evil empire is striking back.

Oh, and the "dirty coal money" that’s supposedly flooding Debbie’s campaign? It’s $2700 from climate hawk Tom Steyer. And his business used to invest in fossil fuel-powered utilities, a long time ago, before he became a climate hawk. And… well, sorry. I. Can’t. Even. #eyeroll #facepalm

Here’s the real target of the NRCC: the disillusioned, occasional voters who say “both sides are the same” and then stay home on Tuesday. But you and I know that both sides aren’t the same. One in Congress voted to drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The other won’t. That’s why it’s so important that climate hawks stand with Debbie.

With polls showing a one-point race in Florida’s 26th District, I’m going to ask you to help us fight back.

Agelbert NOTE: I have ZERO confidence in Pelosi doing what she MUST DO (i.e go 100% Progressive, ESPECIALLY in regard to Renewable Energy) to keep the Hydrocrabon Hellspawn Oligarchy 🐉🦕🦖 STILL RUNNING (and still ruining through massive 24/7 government welfare queen subsidized pollution) the USA from accelerating down the path to the extinction of most mammalian vertebrate species, including humans. Never mind stopping them. They want to EXPAND the hydrocarbon Profit over people and planet 'business model' .

Stupid is as STUPID Suicidal Insanity DOES. 🤬

The Fossil Fuelers 🦖 DID THE Clean Energy Inventionssuppressing, Climate Trashing, human healthdepleting CRIME, but since they have ALWAYS BEEN liars and conscience free crooks 🦀, they are trying to AVOID DOING THE TIME or PAYING THE FINE! Don't let them get away with it! Pass it on!

Agelbert NOTE: YES, this belongs here. EVERY bit of the U.S. Military Industrial Complex Sponsored Murder and Mayhem (including declared wars and undeclared wars) since 1980 has been planned BY the Hydrocarbon Hellspawn 🦕 AND executed by their bought and paid for TOOLS 🦍🦀 in Government. The Fossil Fuel Fascists 🦖, above and beyond the horrendous planetary death toll from carbon pollution hurting thousands of species (inculding humans ☠️), have the blood of millions of innocent people on their hands.

The War on Terror’s Toll, From Atrocities Abroad ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️ to Mass Shootings ☠️ at Home

November 10, 2018

A new Brown University study says the US-led so-called “War on Terror” haskilled around 500,000 people in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan — an “undercount,” it stresses. And as Ian David Long — an-ex U.S. Marine who served in the Afghan war — kills 12 people in Thousand Oaks, California, might we also count victims of mass shootings carried out by U.S. veterans? We speak to Vijay Prashad of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research.

The US 🦍 Must Take Responsibility for Asylum Seekers and the History That Drives Them

BY David L. Wilson 🕊, Truthout

PUBLISHED November 10, 2018

Many Americans feel genuine sympathy for Central American asylum seekers, but confronted with the US's own failing systems, fall for the right-wing line that "it's not our problem." However, anyone who has followed the history of US policies and involvement in Central America knows that the current crises in the region and these migrants absolutely are our responsibility.

Koch Industries is calling for the elimination of tax credits for electric vehicles (EVs), all while claiming that it does not oppose plug-in cars and inviting the elimination of oil and gas subsidies that the petroleum conglomerate and its industry peers receive.

Outgoing Nevada Republican Senator Dean Heller introduced a bill in September that would lift the sales cap on electric vehicles eligible for a federal tax credit, and replace the cap with a deadline that would dictate when the credit would start being phased out.

Under the current tax credit for EVs, once a manufacturer sells 200,000 EVs in the U.S. the amount of the credit gets slashed in half, then halved again. The full credit amount is $7,500. Tesla has already hit the 200,000 cap and GM will soon reach it, so both companies would benefit from a tax credit extension via eliminating the sales cap. Heller's bill lifts the 200,000 vehicle limit and substitutes a phase-out period starting in 2022.

But the conservative senator's bill is facing opposition from the conservative billionaire Koch brothers.

In a letter to senators dated Oct. 24, Koch Industries lobbyist Philip Ellender urges opposition to the expansion of EV tax credits through 2022. Ellender claims that the tax credits primarily benefit wealthy consumers and that subsidization interferes with "innovation and consumer choice."

The letter cites two studies, each by a right-wing think tank. One study comes from the Pacific Research Institute, which has received fossil fuel funding—including more than $1.7 million from Koch-related foundations and $615,000 from ExxonMobil. The PRI study, "Costly Subsidies for the Rich: Quantifying the Subsidies Offered to Battery Electric Powered Cars," emphasizes that "the majority of the dollar benefits from energy and electric car subsidies are paid to tax filers in the higher income tax brackets."

The other study is from the Manhattan Institute, another "free market think tank" that takes in money from the Koch network and Exxon. The study paints a misleading picture of EVs and their subsidies.

In addition to citing biased studies by groups tied to Koch money, Ellender claims in the letter, "We do not oppose electric vehicles."

This sentiment echoes the company's 2016 advertorial, in which Koch Industries claimed to be "all for electric vehicles."

Ellender also claims that Koch Industries is against any and all energy subsidies, even ones that benefit the company. According to the letter:

Instead of expanding this subsidy for wealthy EV owners, Congress should eliminate it along with all other energy incentives—including eliminating any incentives given to us and our competitors where we may participate. We are focused on long-term value creation, not short-term windfalls.In reality, while Koch Industries is claiming publicly to support ending fossil fuel subsidies (along with EV and clean energy incentives), Koch lobbyists have long worked to ensure that the petroleum industry continues to get subsidized.

As Koch vs. Clean previously pointed out, "In a detailed 2011 report on Koch Industries, the Center for Public Integrity wrote: 'Oil is the core of the Koch business empire, and the company's lobbyists and officials have successfully fought to preserve the industry's tax breaks and credits.' The report documented that Koch lobbyists have worked to preserve billions of dollars in oil industry subsidies, including the Section 199 manufacturing tax deduction and the 'last-in, first out' accounting rule."

In fact, according to the International Business Times, Koch Industries has itself directly secured subsidies totaling more than $195 million.

The Koch network also lobbied for the Trump tax cuts that became law late last year. The corporate tax cut is not specific to energy, but it benefits giant corporations including Big Oil and Koch Industries nonetheless. Americans for Tax Fairness estimated that the Kochs would save more than $1 billion just this year from the tax cut—a significant windfall for a corporate behemoth that claims, "Weare focused on long-term value creation, not short-term windfalls."

A court in Iowa has ordered three wind turbines in Fayette County, Iowa be dismantled by December 9. Local residents are standing outside watching them come down and cheering. What’s going on? Some of it has to do with NIMBY, some of it has to do with money, and some of it has to do with the “city vs. country” divide that helped propel the current president into office. The dispute comes down to whether or not the developers who put up the wind turbines had a proper building permit. The court ruled they did not.

Agelbert COMMENT: I smell one of these behind the "anlaysis" the judge made before his Court order:

If those who claim to be so discomfited by wind trubines had to actually pay for the damage the fossil fuel powered electricity they gleefully use in their homes causes, they would opt for sound proofing instead of Koch Brothers🦕🦖 funded, Profit Over People ☠️ and Planet🚩, Renewable Energy Strangling 😈.

I defy anyone here to claim you "cannot soundproof against wind turbines". That is TOTAL BS. Do you want to talk SERIOUSLY about sound pollution or do you want to cherry pick "acceptable" and "unacceptable" sounds caused by out civilization (i. e. make stuff up)?

How many people in the USA live next to train tracks? MILLIONS of them. You don't hear of any court ordering the train tracks relocated because of the sound, MUCH GREATER than that of wind tirbines, generated by frequent freight trains, often carrying toxic cargo to boot!

True, if you are outside, you cannot avoid the sound that wind turbines make. But, if you are inside, which is where people in Iowa are 90% (OR MORE!) of the time, it is not terribly difficult to block the low frequency sound waves produced by wind turbines.

The HYPOCRITES that whine about wind turbines have consistently been quiet as DEATH about the decisions made in towns all accross the USA, for the last century, to permit the building of Coal fired power plants near neighborhoods of the poor.

I would order the judge that gave the Koch Brothers 🦕🦖 this Corruption Based Christmas Present to move to a house a mile or so downwind of a Koch Brothers 🦕🦖 refinery in Southern Texas.

I would plainly ask that judge, What part of the Precautionary Principle of Science does he so poorly interpret that he can turn a blind eye to massive fossil fuel pollution, while claiming that the sound of Wind Turbines is "unacceptable" through legalese DOUBLETALK about "permits"?

It was that judge's responsibility to COMPUTE the benefit of those wind turbines to the community, in terms of pollution avoided, and COMPARE THAT BENEFIT with the bother of the low frequency sound that could cause property values to go down around said wind turbines. He SHIRKED his respsonsibility, PERIOD!

As far as Fossil Fuels are concerned, people that talk about NIMBY (not in my backyard) have to change NIMBY to NOPE, not on planet earth. When they DO THAT, and not a second before, we can talk about whether wind turbines are properly positioned or not.

The double standard in this country between fossil fuel powered power plants and Renewable Energy power plants is the height of hypocrisy.

Agelbert NOTE: Don't think for a secomd that the Hydrocarbon Hellspawn are any less corrosive to our environment and our government than they were in 2017. If anything, they have increased their unethical destructive activity.

This article covers their typical mens rea modus operandi. These bastards need to be shut down in Ohio (and everywhere else) or we are toast.

With scare studies, policy drafts and political donations, industry groups turned Ohio lawmakers against policies they once overwhelmingly supported.

SNIPPET 1:

As fossil fuel 🦖 interests 👹 mobilized at the national level to fight proposals to mitigate climate change that would undercut their profits, they made Ohio a priority for fighting clean energy policy at the state level. Beginning in earnest in 2011, a network of coal companies, utilities, think tanks, nonprofit foundations and political action committees coalesced to roll back Ohio's alternative energy initiatives.

Victory for the environment: Ryan Zinke resigns from the Department of the Interior after onslaught of scandals!VICTORY! Ryan Zinke just stepped down as Secretary of the Interior, according to a tweet from Donald Trump. He will leave at the end of the year. This was largely thanks to people like you demanding he be held accountable for his corruption.

Every day Ryan Zinke was in office, he worked to destroy our public lands and waters -- with devastating impacts on our communities. He slashed protections for places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Bears Ears National Monument. And he did it all to help his fossil fuel industry friends.

The scandals surrounding Zinke have been building for months. The DOI Inspector General released a report showing that every time Zinke had a choice between benefiting taxpayers and himself, he chose himself. He even changed policies so taxpayers would cover travel for his wife, and wasted $25,000 on a romantic trip to Turkey with her.

His corruption was so severe that the DOI Inspector General referred an investigation to the Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution.

Friends of the Earth members like you spoke out on these scandals and made them impossible for Trump to ignore. Zinke resigned after you signed petitions, made phone calls, took to social media and took to the streets to demand that he be kicked out of the Department of Interior.

This shows that when people like you stand up to Trump and his Administration, you can make a difference. You can stop them from destroying our environment and endangering our communities.

Forcing Zinke out is a huge victory for people and the environment. Each day Zinke was Interior Secretary, he worked to advance his radical plan to slash national monuments, cut Indigenous communities out of the decision-making process, and ignore significant environmental, cultural, and scientific information. And he did it all in a mad dash to frack ☠️, mine ☠️ and drill ☠️ on America's public lands.

And until the scandals caught up to him, he was dangerously ☠️ effective at it.

By kicking Zinke out of the Department of the Interior, you helped send a strong message that it’s unacceptable for our leaders to put the fossil fuel industry and other corporate interests ahead of people and the planet.

Trump 🦀 is still trying to fill his government with corrupt extremists 💵 🎩 and climate deniers 🦕. Zinke’s likely replacement,David Bernhardt 🐉, is a walking conflict of interest.Before coming to Interior he was a high paid lobbyist representing the very industries that will profit from Trump’s plan to hand our public lands and waters over to polluters.

That’s why we’ll need you with us every step of the way as we work to stop these dangerous nominees and appointees. But Zinke’s ouster shows that when we all take action together, we win.

Thank you for helping build a better future for our country and our planet.

Standing with you,Nicole Ghio,Senior fossil fuels program manager,Friends of the Earth

Put your hands together for the most watched video on our Facebook page in 2018! We’re honestly not surprised that this one took the crown. The Trump 🦀 Administration 🐉🦕🦖 has done a lot of damage to the climate movement this year – and clearly, people were paying attention.

Every week (and sometimes every day) seemed to present another instance of the White House on the wrong side of climate history. Case in point: the administration’s decision to place a tariff on solar panels manufactured overseas. This video explains why imposing this tariff was such a terrible idea, hurting both American workers and our planet.

In most parts of the country, the improvements people make to their homes increase the taxable value of their property. The building permit process has two parts. The first makes sure the proposed improvements comply with all applicable building codes. The second sends the information from the application to the tax assessor so the value can be taxed the next time property tax bills are rendered. But is a rooftop solar system a taxable improvement?

The answer to that question depends on where you live. Some states say yes, others say no. Even within a state, the rules may vary. That is the case in Michigan where most communities choose to treat rooftop solar systems as personal property that is not subject to real estate taxes. But Ann Arbor, one of the larger cities in Michigan, takes the opposite view. It treats rooftop solar systems as real estate, claiming state law requires it to do so. Therefore, the value of those systems are taxed by the city.

Ann Arbor residents Mark Clevey and Nancy Fenton filed a lawsuit last year asking the court to declare their rooftop solar system was personal property and not real estate. They lost. According to a report by Michigan Live, tax tribunal judge Steven Lasher agreed with the city, saying residential solar energy systems are not common enough to be considered the type of “customary” personal property exempt from taxation.

To be clear, the judge ruled that if rooftop solar systems were more common, they would be exempt but because they are not more common, they are taxable, even though taking them out of the taxable category would encourage more people to install rooftop solar. “The law is a ass,” Charles Dickens wrote in the 19th century. Things in the legal sphere have not improved all that much since then, apparently.

In 2018, the Michigan legislature stepped in to resolve the issue. It passed two bills — HB 5143 and HB 5680 — that specifically defined rooftop solar systems as personal property. Even the Ann Arbor city council passed a resolution last fall supporting both bills. HB 5143 passed the House 106-3 and the Senate 38-0. HB 5680 passed the House 105-4 and the Senate 38-0. Just before the end of the year, Michigan governor Rick Snyder, the man who has refused to lift a finger to help the citizens of Flint solve their water crisis, vetoed both measures.

“There was no opposition,” says Clevey, who is also vice president of the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association. “It was a good idea, it was based on merit, and everybody came together and said, ‘This (taxation) is bad for everybody, so let’s get rid of this stupid law.’”

Ostensibly, the governor’s action was based on the fact that the new legislation would set up two classes of rooftop solar owners — those who installed their systems before the law changed and those who did so afterward. This sort of legislative oversight is routinely resolved by the courts, which have ruled consistently that any legislation is presumed to apply retroactively unless the legislature clearly states a different intention.

But Snyder was having none of it. Common sense, logic, and the will of the people be damned. The law is the law is the law and never the twain shall meet, or something like that.

Comments on the Michigan Live story may provide some illumination on this subject. A person calling himself Snide posted, “Almost unanimous support in both chambers by both parties yet he vetoes…. In this case I’d say follow the money……..who will benefit by this not going ahead and check Snyder’s connection to them,” which got this reply, “Fossil fuel companies have Snyder in their pocket.” Perhaps so. Snyder has been obstinately opposed to any proposal that would allow Tesla to sell direct to Michigan residents.

While perusing the comments, I couldn’t help noticing this posting from someone styling himself as SpotOn: “A123 was an alternative energy for cars. How did that work out? Over 500 Billion in subsidies before they went bankrupt.” A free subscription to the CleanTechnica newsletter to the first person who spots the error in that statement. If we could turn idiocy into energy, we could decarbonize the electrical grid overnight.